Lions Under Palm Trees
by FountainPenguin
Summary: Okay, so this delusional wannabe wizard and his shy but loyal Viking princess of a girlfriend walk into a five-star resort following their being booted from a reality show race around the world. "So what's the joke?" the puzzled wizard asks, to which an old frenemy paints on his usual false smile and says, "It'll come to you, buddy. Wait for it..." (Written October 2015 - Ongoing)
1. LARP Around the Clock Tonight

_Three pinches of basil, a mint leaf, two cups of salt, a piece of gold, puppy dog tears, and a teaspoon of blood from each participant stirred counter-clockwise for three hours in a cauldron of boiling water beneath a bright sky on February 29th will bind a pair in eternal, loyal friendship with a bond that is impossible to break through any means at all, short of drinking dragon urine. (P.S. Dragon urine = $$$ -Tam)_

* * *

He stuffed his fists in his sleeves, tightening his nails into his elbows, and blew upwards at the two strands of his brown cowlick that had slipped out from under his hood-like hat. "I thought there would be maracas all over Morocco, and I'm still kinda let down about that, honestly."

There was no answer from the shorter, squatter girl who hurried after him between the sand dunes, one hand pressed to the left horn of her Viking helmet, but that was all right. She wasn't so much for talking, and he wasn't so much for listening, and thus they made a good solid pair that the gods themselves would have struggled to snap apart. In defense of the gods, the two of them _had_ performed an eternal binding spell a year ago in 2012, almost on the precise anniversary of the day he'd offered his hand to lead her out of that locker and he'd officially asked her out.

And of course he'd asked her out- I mean, even he being what he was, he'd played enough D&D to recognize a love interest when she fell quite literally into his lap. If she hadn't been interested, then she could have and would have said no. Their fates were sealed from the instant those bullies tired of picking on Courtney for losing her college scholarships and making friends with Ezekiel Foster, and they'd slammed the metal door on the tall boy in the green wizard robes and the geeky, mousy-haired girl who sometimes in her bolder moments dyed her hair cloudy blonde instead. And now here they were, trekking through the desert just enjoying one another's perfect company. Somewhere in his inventory was an elven-silver-and-amethyst wedding ring he'd… found, but it was a symbol of their future union and not a question. They'd already set the wedding day for the summer solstice of 2020, and were going to honeymoon near the Bay of Fundy with eventual plans to find an apartment in British Columbia- especially if Ella and Scarlett were still attending college in that general area.

After several more minutes of squinting into the setting desert sun, he turned his head. "Can you believe we actually landed ourselves the opportunity to meet TOM and JEN in person? How did I do? I didn't squeal too much, did I? I tried to keep my fanatic Barrier side in check when I heard it was _them_ , but all day long after I met them I was screaming inside my head and bouncing up and down."

She smiled, even though her brown eyes stayed forward. "You did great."

The gap-toothed grin disappeared. "Three whole words in a row when it's just me around? Hey, are you doing all right?"

"Fine."

"Good." He placed his arm around her neck and gave her a brief hug as they trekked on through the sand. "Well, I'm glad you're fine."

Their names were Leonard and Tammy, these two teenagers - Leonard Augustus Randolph Paylor Moore and Tamara Alexis Caudwell if you wanted them to grin and clap their hands - and a year from now those names would be, well… not a whole lot of anything, really, so why one would even bring it up remains a mystery. And today alone, they had already ridden a long flight from Toronto to Morocco, been trapped in an elevator that stank of expired beans and moldy pineapple and burning socks and other such unpleasant things (Leonard knew shrew corpses all too well), been yelled at by a taxi driver in public, bumped through the desert on a camel's back, lost out on one million dollars (He was two for two when it came to reality shows), been humiliated on international TV, and in Leonard's case, also downed a bowl of spicy chili that now, forty-five minutes later, wasn't settling in his stomach very pleasantly at all. All without a word of complaint, thank you very much.

"I think we could've done better," Tammy told the camerawoman who had been tailing them all day. Her name was Johanna (Johanna's name was. Tammy's name was Tammy).

Pursing his lips, Leonard returned his hand to his sleeves. "I got to do a lot of things I never wanted to try, so that's something."

"I…" She paused over the word. "I'm glad we did this together. We can share these memories. Forever."

"I still don't get why we have to _walk_ home."

A puff of wind blew a swirl of sand into their faces. Both teenagers rubbed the grit from their eyes, he with the tips of his middle fingers and she with her pinkie and thumb. Leonard didn't know if Morocco was in the northern or southern hemisphere, but it had been September back in Canada. If this was fall, he didn't want to see this place's summer.

He favored neutrality as a general rule, but he did not care for sand at all. Oh, he didn't mind a few grains hitching a ride so long as it kept on the outside of his clothes, but when it got into his _sleeves_ … That was where he had to draw the line. Sand, dirt, and tiny gritty pebbles were not allowed to snuggle into the black hole of a space between the inner folds of his clothes and his bare skin, because then he might never shake them out again.

Johanna had been gawking at him for the last fifteen minutes. When he next uncovered his face, she finally voiced her thoughts.

"How are you not dead? I've been tailing you for the last like twenty-four hours, so I know for a fact you are wearing two layers of long sleeves and _sweatpants_ , and if you don't mind me saying it (although frankly I'll be ditching you soon so I don't much care if you do), you're black and black absorbs heat, right? Isn't that how it works? Aren't you roasting?"

"Magic," Leonard muttered, "and I've had enough." As he stomped further ahead, he drew his wand from his sleeve. "If I want to summon a majestic purple griffin to carry us across the scorching expanse of these suffocating deserts, then by TOM's computer mouse, I am going to summon a majestic purple griffin. And I'm going to give him yellow spots and name him Sourpuss Benjamin."

Tammy took the corner of his sleeve where it hung loosely over his slender elbow and gave it two tugs. "Len, what did we talk about?"

The wand came down, but only just. "We get what we get and we're grateful I didn't cause our deaths today."

"I was going to say 'Always go for the rainbow-gobbling track star pegacorn', but that works." Tammy slid off her Viking hat, shaking out the fluffy braid that poured down her back. Before she spoke, she spat onto the metal of her helmet and massaged it in with the cloth she always carried in her satchel with the Sunray Pixie Queen's blue crystal ocarina. A little more spit went onto her forehead, where sweat had tugged out stray curls.

Heartbeats passed. Her thumb went into her mouth. Then she said, with words that had been carefully picked (they always were- this was Tammy), "Leonard… The reason we lost out on the million dollars was because we halted just before the finish line to show off with our magic, and it failed us. This isn't even the first time, not for me and especially not for you. Have you considered that maybe we aren't capable of using magic after all?"

" _What_?" Leonard stopped walking and whirled on his heels in the same movement. "Tammy, have goblins scooped out your mind and replaced it with pumpkin pie jelly? You've been watching too much 'House'. Who are you? Really?"

"Len, I just-"

"What's the secret code word?"

"I was only-"

Leonard flattened his ears to his head with his palms and squeezed his eyelids shut. "You're not mind controlling me, whoever you are, white witch. What's the secret code word?"

He heard Johanna snicker, but when he dared to crack an eyelid to glare at her for mocking what she did not understand, she averted her gaze back behind her video camera. Of course she kept the thing rolling.

"Tortoiseshell cakes."

With a sigh, he folded his larger hands around her smaller ones and drew her closer. "Tammy, do you believe in magic?"

She stared up at him without blinking. "I thought I did, but-"

He tightened his grip. "And do you like the idea of magic?"

"Yes, of course, and I-"

"And do you wish to harness that power for yourself for the good of all woman- and mankind and all the fabulous creatures that dwell upon or in the earth?"

"I've always-"

"Then you're magic, simple as that. Don't let anyone physical or spectral ever tell you otherwise. Don't dwell on your doubts. They have no power of their own, so they have to feed off yours to make themselves grow. Low self-esteem is one of the unbreakable hexes. Unbreakable by magic, I mean. You have to beat it by yourself without any sort of hints or cheat codes."

Tammy looked at their interlaced fingers for a moment. Her shoulders rose a little, then slumped. Leonard half-expected that she might start crying, which would be really weird. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd do if that happened, because he'd known Tammy for all of two years and the only time he'd ever seen her cry was the pancake incident when they were fifteen. But no tears came, and she simply threw her arms around him and nuzzled her face into his chest.

"Thanks, Len. You're the best."

He winced and nudged her backwards. "I must ask that you don't squeeze my stomach too tightly. I don't feel too great. I think the spices in that stew want to spring back up one at a time."

"Can you hold it for another hour?" asked Johanna. "We're almost to the helicopter, and I don't want to have to ride next to you if you're soaked in vomit goo."

Leonard tightened his lips. "Of course, I _have_ mixed potions that tasted far worse than this before, like that guitar string and vole intestine one, but even that pales in comparison to the sickly stuff you have to down for _love_ potions. And then the accursed thing didn't even work. I mean, I knew I was probably going to be immune to its powers anyway, but I was still majorly disappointed. But that was back when I was thirteen and now I don't care anymore. Oh, and I did still get a girl, so that's something."

Instead of answering, Tammy shielded her face from the red sunlight. "Is it that helicopter way over there?"

As it turned out, yes. When 'that helicopter way over there' became 'that helicopter right in front of us', the pair were introduced to their pilot, who didn't speak English and whose name they couldn't quite agree on or manage to shape with their mouths. Tammy placed her fingertips to what had to be a door of blazing metal.

"I've never ridden in a helicopter before."

"Yeah, me neither." As he buckled into his seat, Leonard turned back and said, "Are you going to fly us all the way back to Canada?"

The beads along Johanna's headband and the rings in her ears whipped with a _jingle-jing jangle_. "Nah, we can't afford to fly you all the way back like this. What do you think this is- the Total Drama budget? We're just dropping you off back at the Moroccan airport where you came in. Where I'll be leaving you," she added, apparently under the impression that they cared.

So they were off. The helicopter crouched and kicked off into the air, blades beating. Leonard leaned back in his seat.

"Ah. This will be a lot more of a relaxing way to reach the post-elimination station than that blasted cannon Chris whipped up for us back on Total Drama."

"What did you say, Len? I can't hear you over the helicopter!"

But Johanna heard, even if Tammy didn't, and so did the pilot; the revelation caused them both to jump some like they'd each had a mind-seize potion dumped down their backs. "You were actually on Total Drama? Both of you?"

"Well, I was part of Season 6. This today was Tammy's first reality show. But I'm not really supposed to talk about Pahkitew Island until the finale's out."

Not that he'd know terribly much about the stuff that would be airing from here on forward. Episode 2 had been released a week ago. "I Love You, Greased Pig". What kind of a title was that, anyway? He would've preferred "Leonard's Glory" or "Leonard's Defiance" or even something less direct such as "The Man Who Can't Be Moved". Today had been Tammy's first choke, but he was two for two now on losing out on a million shiny dollars, and, well… It was _okay_ and he would live, but it wasn't _cool_.

After that, Leonard fell asleep with his head resting in one hand. He awoke as they were coming down at the airport, but Tammy still nudged him with her knee.

"I'm up," he mumbled. "Don't take all the bananas. I want them on my pancakes. What? Ah. Marvelous- we've arrived."

Shrugging, Johanna passed them two folded white and blue tickets. "That plane of yours leaves tonight. I would highly encourage you not to miss it, but there's an intern fellow who'll meet you in there and so if you don't make it, he knows the procedure to follow and will help you. The flight will take you to Gander, Newfoundland, and then you'll find a ride waiting to pick you up there."

"Thanks, Johanna."

They disembarked from the helicopter, and she tossed them each a last bag of Cheetos and returned to her GameGuy. In the little airport, Tammy groaned.

"Air conditioning is nice?"

"Exactly."

There weren't a lot of people milling about as the evening wore on, and so it didn't take long for Leonard to spot a sweaty little strawberry-blond teen with two tufted spikes at the front of his hair. He was dressed in pale orange and standing stoically beside a suspiciously-familiar sky-pink suitcase. He couldn't have been more than five feet tall (and that might have been pushing it), but he crossed his arms and stared forward, brows drawn, daring anybody to steal it from him. "Hey Tammy, your bag looks just like that," Leonard began, and then said, "Oh. That is your bag. That's the intern we've come to seek."

"Leonard Moore and Tamara Caudwell: dedicated LARPers." It wasn't a question. When they nodded, the intern kid gave Leonard an unapologetic look. "None of the bags were tagged with your name. They might've gotten lost."

"No, we're cool- I didn't bring any bags. I keep most of my stuff with me." He gestured to his robes for emphasis, then included Tammy with a flourish of his hand. "My potion stuff is in Tammy's suitcase. My ingredients, I mean- people don't seem to like it much if you try to slip liquids on a plane."

She offered up a thin smile followed by a couple nods.

"Good," said the intern, disinterested. He pushed the suitcase towards Tammy with his foot. "I'm Everett. Let's not miss your flight home."

"Everett?" The word rang familiar for some reason. "Is that your first name or your last name?"

"Depends."

Okay. "Depends on what?"

"Mostly on who's asking."

Leonard shrugged and let him keep his secrets. Still, it niggled in the back of his mind as he followed the shorter boy through customs, the international clearances, and all the way to their numbered waiting area.

"You're not coming?" Tammy asked when Everett, still expressionless, waved them off while their flight loaded.

"My job is to make sure you get all your bags and seat your bums on that plane. If that's your only suitcase, you won't have to stop at the carousel on the other side and can walk straight out. Look for the white car with the Ridonculous Race logo on the doors. Unless he tricked Keiani into pick-up duty again, that's my little brother; this year he's driving and I'm on meet-and-greet. He'll take you to the hotel where you'll be staying until the season is over. You were on Total Drama, Leonard? I guess you know the drill."

Leonard wondered how _little_ Everett's brother could possibly be. But he said, "I leave you with my utmost gratitude for looking out for us. Might I inquire, where are you headed now, if you will not be accompanying us back to Canada?"

"The next Race location is Paris, and I should get there in plenty of time to do tourist stuff." He fluttered his fingers in farewell, and as he walked off with his shoulders square and hands linked behind his back, the toes of his shoes scraping tile with every step, he reminded Leonard of someone. Maybe one of his foster siblings- there were always dozens flitting in and out of his house over the course of the year.

He and Tammy broke open the Cheeto bags and buckled themselves in. As Tammy paged through some book she'd brought along, Leonard took advantage of the dark cabin to sleep again. He wasn't much for sleeping at the best of times, but being in Morocco for even one day had really screwed up his mental time zone, and since he was from Manitoba, he didn't expect Newfoundland to be a whole lot better.

They chased the ever-setting sun for something like fifteen hours, and Leonard found himself still leaning on Tammy as they picked their way off the plane and outside in search of their ride. Actually, their driver ended up spotting them first.

"Hey, Len!"

Leonard choked on his own sleepy drool. Spinning on his heels, he yanked out his wand and raised it high above his head with his left hand. " _Topher_? What in TOM's name are you doing here? And what's with the glasses?"

And why was he wearing _red_?

He leaned back against the trunk of the car, cocked his head to the other side, and scratched at his strawberry-blond cowlicks. "Well, just taking a stab at it, but I probably live here. Me and my big brother Everett."

 _That's_ where he'd heard the name. "At… the airport?"

"Good guess; you're not too far off. Could you do me a favor and stick your suitcase in the trunk (Is that all of them)? I meant the Race's post-elimination hotel. Well, I live there most of the time. We always spend spring break and two weeks in the summer with our mom and her husband and kids in Alberta, but yeah, for the most part we get to chill back at the Palace with Dad." He locked his hands behind his back and smiled first left, then right. "When he isn't hosting, anyway. I like Gander, don't you?"

Inwardly, Leonard zapped himself with a face-palming spell. Back at the Pahkitew houseboat, Topher had probably hinted that his dad was a famous reality show host a good sixteen times. This would indeed explain why he had constantly recommended they all audition for future seasons of the Race, and why he'd seemed to take Leonard's very existence as a personal compliment back on Pahkitew Island.

But he couldn't just say anything to Topher's face that would imply he hadn't believed him. Nobody wanted to feel like people didn't believe them. Leonard put away his wand and kept his hands tucked in his sleeves. All right. Since he needed a distraction from the present awkwardness anyway, he'd just go ahead and acknowledge the elephant on the sidewalk sooner rather than later.

"So. Uh, I like your sweater, Toph. Bloody crimson is the color of the taxing trail that winds through the Canyons of Most Endurance, and it… seems to suit you? But whatever happened to your old one? You didn't… change _signature codes_ without explicit otherworldly permission, did you?" As he confessed his concern, he and Tammy exchanged glances and shuffled two steps back up the sidewalk. Now that they'd gotten safely off the show and were supposed to be on their way to a five-star luxury resort, Leonard figured the last thing in the world they wanted to do was catch anything that could make them ill, whether physically or mentally. He didn't handle sickness very well.

His eyebrows pressed together, and he glanced down at the two diagonal stripes of yellow across his shirt from left shoulder to right hip. "Huh? No, of course not. Plus, those Tom and Jen name-alikes were with you guys. This's been my sweater since I was twelve. Red's the dedication signature and yellow is for br- Oh!" Then he seemed to get it. A laugh escaped him, and he snapped his fingers. "I'm wrong, you're right. Good memory, Len. I wore my cousin's to the island. Nearly forgot about that, and it hasn't even been two months. It's like I'm losing my touch or something. No, no, I assure you, I'm perfectly fine. Yeah, no, 'Loyalty Blue' was never my thing. Here, hop in and we'll get going."

"Then… why would you test the waters that way? Isn't that dangerous?" With one hand on the offered door, Leonard used the other to make a motion towards his throat and mime being choked to death by the collar of his robes. "You could offend TOM."

Topher slid off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve. "Yes, it is- you're right on that. But you do realize most everything I pulled on that island was done to flatter Chris, right? I even got a custom angel tattoo on my ankle to match his. Literally the only reason I didn't take it a step further and color my hair black is because the dye doesn't stick with my type. I tried right before I did my audition tape. _Polkadots_ , Leonard." As he shut the door and switched the car on, he shivered. "Stripes do not go with such hideous polkadots, and it's not like I could wear the blue sweater for longer than a couple hours without a break for obvious reasons." The glasses went back on his nose. "I can't exactly call the LARP loophole on the thing like you two and pray for the best as I burn cinnamon sticks and bumblebee wings on the barbecue grill."

"The loophole chant requires an orange silly straw with three loops, all of them cut in half beneath the crescent moon, and that's just for the original set-up and not including the daily boosters," Leonard said. "No one burns bumblebee wings with cinnamon unless they're trying to make a heap of snow and tiny Eskimo people on sleds fall from the sky on the head of someone they hate."

"Right. Next time I swat at a bee, I'll know to bring it to you guys. Plus, if it makes you feel much better, the very first day kinda almost did me in there as it was. That's why I kept running off for bathroom breaks on the zeppelin- couldn't breathe with that thing on. Anywho, then I had to wait three days for all that black dye to wash out of my hair in full. It stained my sink too. So." He waved a 'Thank you' at a car that had paused for him at a turn. "Welcome to your first day of hanging with the real Toph-Man. No more mind games and no more fibs, obviously."

Still, Leonard found a frown tugging at one corner of his mouth. Topher promising to drop his chronic mind games was about as believable as him saying 'Leonard, you can't really do magic'.

"Huh. As long as you're happy and comfortable with yourself, I suppose. But I imagine it will take me a long while to get used to it."

Tammy cocked her head and said, "So I take it the two of you first met back on Pahkitew Island."

"Yes, you're right, sure did. Excellent guess, really. Opposite teams, but we hung out on the houseboat after elimination and I'd call us friends." He adjusted his mirror. "You'd call us friends, right, Len?"

Nod, even if it was a slow one. There were devoted Beardo friends, there were We-actually-have-a-lot-in-common Amy friends, there were epic-LARPing-goddess Scarlett friends, and there were I'm-confused-now-like-were-you-not-just-taunting-me-yesterday Topher friends. Sure, they were _friends_ , but… Topher was one of those Topher-friends.

"So then the lovely lady in my presence must be the famous Tammy. Name's Christopher Cummings, by the way, though I much prefer to be addressed by the last two syllables of that first name just on their own. Please say them as many times as you like 'til it sticks. I get to screen all the audition tapes with my dad, and technically I'm the one responsible for getting you accepted to the Race. It's nice to see you're still tight with my pal Len over here. With all the times he said he'd do it, I expected him to have actually broken up with you by now."

Tammy slid her eyes over to him. Leonard cleared his throat. "Topher, I kind of assumed we discussed that in confidence."

He paused. The right-hand blinker turned on. "Was this not a known thing between you two? From the way you always said it, I thought it was your little joke."

"Aw, Len, c'mon. You were thinking of breaking up with me behind my back again?"

"Ehiyeh, well…" Leonard made his hands look like scales balancing out the weight of different objects. None of which he wanted to touch. He stuffed his sleeves together again, fingers linking.

For a long moment as they drove, Tammy sat there with her eyes shut and her knuckles resting against her forehead, elbow in one hand. Finally she said, "Fortunately for me you do this all the time, and fortunately for you I know you well enough to know you never meant it."

"Yes. That is what happened."

She rolled her eyes. "I should probably be more offended about this than I actually am. I guess that's what happens when you prioritize best friendship above the flirty stuff: you honestly don't really care if that side of the relationship ends, because you know you'll still be best friends forever."

"Oh, indubitably." Leonard leaned over to give her a one-armed hug around the shoulders. "Holding hands is nice, but it's the fact that you're always there for me that I'd miss most of all."

For some reason, this made Topher crack up. "All three of us are such aromantics, aren't we? Beardo would make noises like he was dying of a heart attack if he heard this. Too bad a certain few of our houseboat friends didn't see things quite that way- they'd probably be such great buds still if they had your positive outlooks on life, and I wouldn't have had my ships sunk. Hey Tammy, do me a favor and hand me that water bottle back there? Yeah, the red one."

As she passed it up, Tammy nudged Leonard in the ribs with her elbow and whispered, "Were you seriously thinking of dumping me?"

"Not without calling you via scrying bowl to let you know," he whispered back.

"Who was she?"

"Scarlett. I really like Scarlett."

"Oh."

"But you don't have to worry about that ever happening because-"

"I know why."

He waited, then ticked off on his fingers, "Also Sky, Sammy, and Ella. Possibly Jasmine, except she accidentally stabbed me in the arm and then accidentally tried to feed me to a shark."

She shoved him in the chest and stopped talking.

Sticky noon sun dripped into their eyes like apple cider. Leonard slipped his hands into his sleeves and ran his fingers over his skin and various tucked-away items that lurked therein. After about fifteen more minutes of weaving between traffic and drifting through winding roads and increasingly-narrow side-streets, the car turned off the solid road and onto a dirt path. Leonard squinted past his reflection as spruce trees blurred together with scattered boulders and the occasional cardinal or raccoon. They kept on the trail for a minute and a half before it widened into a circle and Topher pulled the car over.

"This is us," he said, pushing open his door.

"We're here already?"

"Yes, you're right. I mean, this is Newfoundland. There are like, five hundred thousand people on the entire island. How far did you think we were going?"

Saying 'further' seemed stupid. But, Leonard reflected as he grabbed Tammy's suitcase from the trunk, Chris liked to work on islands and had to keep all the dangerous and deadly stuff away from the public. Don skipped across the world and didn't need to tuck his headquarters too far from the cities and towns.

It seemed to be a quaint place. Leonard took a loop around the circle, peering into the surrounding forest of evergreens. Nothing roared at him. Nothing retracted underground or sprang out of a trapdoor. Yes, good. He liked the look of the area already. He liked this show. He liked Don. Camping out here for a couple of weeks while the other twenty-one teams sprinted across the globe and butted heads in unfriendly challenges wouldn't be so bad at all.

Tammy faced a signpost, hands to her hips. "'Loserdom Palace'," she read. "'Private property, please keep out. No snooping paparazzi or I'll uppercut you with a bean bag. -Donahue.'" A smile crept over her thin lips. "The place is ours."

And 'the place' wasn't lacking in beauty any more than Tammy was. Beyond the sign and a couple more trees and shrubs, a stepping-stone path curled away like a seashell. The path melted around a long pool, lined not with tiles but with large decorative stones. It even had a small waterfall spurting into the nearby hot tub. Heaps of pink and purple towels. Long lounge chairs striped with rubber straps. Picnic tables with red paint chipping white sheltered beneath flared, colorful umbrellas. Tucked in the back, a three-floored building like a cozy log cabin loomed against the sky, capped by a sweeping green roof and a swirly chimney.

Leonard offered his elbow. "My lady."

"My wizard."

After she linked arms, Leonard turned around. "My… loyal minstrel and comic relief?"

Topher snorted like a cheery canary and slipped past them. "This is a tricycle. The third wheel rides in front. Come on and I'll hit you with the grand tour." At the top of the rise, he threw out his arms. "This is… the Ridonculous Race. Welcome! To the Loser! -dom! Palace!"

The confetti cannons went off from the sidelines, soaking both of them with a glittering rainbow of streamers. Applause broke out from the bushes, and Leonard looked around in search of human beings or friendly animals, but ran across only black speakers and knotted wires. Just as well.

Topher cleared his throat. "Len?"

"Huh?"

He nodded his head towards the nearest of the picnic tables, and Leonard spotted the cake for the first time. Tammy had already seen it, and perched on the bench with hands and knees, one foot dangling near the pretty stones.

"Did you bake this yourself, Topher?"

"Yes, I did, you're right. The '21' is there because that's your season. And you're in luck- only the first team eliminated ever gets to taste my baking. Do me a favor and eat while we walk? I'm excited to show you around."

"No peanuts?" Tammy checked.

"Nope."

"But I suppose it's too much to hope that it's lactose-free?"

"Actually, it is. I have access to all your files and I made sure I nailed it in the allergy department. It's just the Funfetti flavor with vanilla icing."

"Topher, you're one of my favorite people in the whole world now. That was clever."

"You are absolutely welcome, Tam. It's not always easy, but I try." He snipped off a slice for himself and twirled his red plastic fork until a bite stuck to the tines. Once Leonard and Tammy had theirs, he spun on his toes and started off. He led them around the pool, down to the shed that housed the ATVs, past the little in-ground waterslide sculpted into a small hill, over to the racquetball court, the minigolf course, the canoe pond, and the beginnings of multiple hiking trails.

"Follow that one there for about two and a half miles and you'll come out right by a little strip of private beach. Just… watch your step around the local wildlife. They've gotten kinda used to handouts over the years, and part of your contracts warns you that we can't be held responsible for attacks, damages, or corrupt business deals." He snapped his fingers three times. "Most of the chipmunks are in cahoots with the woodpeckers and will lie through their teeth to rob you blind. Seals are good people, except for the one we nicknamed Lemon. Trust me, you'll know Lemon when you see her. Her card tricks are stunning but she cheats at chess. And definitely don't take anything from the gophers unless you've watched them eat it first. Otherwise we've got foxes, bats, ermines, bunnies, beavers, black bears, seagulls, caribou, otters, lynxes, rodents, ducks, and the occasional moose. That's my family."

Tammy glanced at Leonard, then asked, "So is it just… you here all by yourself a lot, Topher?"

He hesitated over one step in his walk, then forged on. "Not when I have you guys. And I have Keiani who does the cooking and stuff. Jason the gardener. Erica fixes things. And it wasn't like I was alone as a kid either- my dad always used to bring me and Everett to work with him when I was a toddler, and when I got a little older I stayed with babysitters. Now that I'm older again, I can take care of myself, so I'm not _needing_ anyone, if that's what you were trying to imply with your question. I'm not being deprived of anything."

"I see," Leonard said, still squinting at a pretty red leaf he'd picked up from the ground.

Inside they stumbled across soft brown chairs and couches, glass coffee tables, overflowing bookshelves, crocheted afghans, coat racks, lamps shaped like wolves, a flat-screen TV playing "Fairly OddParents" in silence, and a fine set of sweeping stairs that arched up to the second floor. The thin ramp beside it was either for wheelchairs or for sliding down on sheets of cardboard. A great glass… _thing_ dangled from the ceiling- not quite a chandelier, but a sort of multi-faced glass case filled with tiny lightbulbs. The fluffiness of the starry-night carpet still showed around the edges, but it had been trotted down through the years by hundreds of feet. Maps and framed photos coated the walls and most of the available surfaces. While Tammy pursed her lips and Leonard outright gawked, Topher ignored all of it and veered around behind the stairs. Handprints scattered like swarming wasps up and down the back wall, in all different colors, from floor to ceiling and even across the window glass.

"This is the Wall of Losership." Topher stuck his fork between his teeth and nudged a row of paint trays along several sheets of plastic towards them. "Yep- every team that's ever lost has left their mark in here. You guys can start a new column over on that end beneath the fourth window, and since you're the first ones here, you'll be right down at the bottom in this column here. Season 21."

Leonard studied the trays, then set his cake aside and slipped his hand into the green paint. Tammy did the same with the blue. They exchanged smiles. Then, as one, they twisted their hands so their eight total fingers pointed down and pressed their palms against the wall.

"The green lion and the blue palm tree," Leonard explained to Topher, taking the offered towel to wipe the paint away. "In Hikojori-Dwarvish and Northeast-Elventongue, respectively. They're both indications of exquisitely good luck."

"I like it. Great idea, both of you."

Their next stop was the bathroom to rinse their hands clean, and then Topher led them down the right-hand hallway.

"This is the mess hall," he said when they reached the propped double doors, tossing his plastic plate and fork away. "You can always eat in here or outside, but it would be awesome if you didn't spill on the hotel carpet, because a certain someone here is supposed to vacuum each floor every other week, and it's way easier to insist that I did if there's not an obvious mess lying around."

"I getcha."

Another corridor led off behind the mess hall, and after they'd come around the first corner, he raised his hand to stop them.

"That's Everett's with the red and yellow crayon scribbles at the bottom of the door. My room's this one here diagonal." Topher started to open the door, but before he got it more than a few inches, a blur of ginger fur shot out and launched itself, hissing, at Leonard's sleeve. " _Hey,_ " he yelped, trying to shake it off, but the cat clung to the fabric with tight claws, tail lashing. It could probably smell the hamster.

Tammy chuckled. "He seems pretty attached to you, Len. What's his name?"

Shrugging, Topher pried the cat from Leonard's robes and cradled it against his neck. "She doesn't care what you call her, just as long as you aren't calling her late to dinner or Saturday cartoons. We mix it up every few weeks to keep her interested. I think right now she's going by Nutmeg."

Nutmeg flattened her ears and hissed again. Leonard pressed his fingers together in his sleeves, trying to ignore the pitter-patter of cold hamster feet across his skin.

"She's still salty because her big brother got to be on TV a couple years back. Aren't you, Nutty-Butty?" Topher made kissy faces at his cat as he eased his door open with his foot. "But you're going to show up big ol' Dander Boy someday, aren't you, pwecious pudding pop? My gift from above? There you go." The cat was set back down in his room, and before she stalked off she snarled something at Leonard that he had the feeling Beardo would have been too embarrassed to translate and Ella would have tried to pass off as a gesture of friendship. The door was shut.

They followed Topher around the hall until they ended up at the first door on the left they would have run into if they'd have taken the main left-hand passage from the main lobby area to begin with.

"She's not much of a talker, is she?" Topher asked after Tammy had slipped inside to stake her claim on one of the two red beds.

"Isn't she?" Leonard stared after her. "You know, I forget that sometimes. But now that you bring it to light, I suppose you're correct. She tends to be more of a listening ear than an inciter of tales."

"Can't imagine why." As he started for the door that would lead him back outside, Topher rolled his eyes like he was making a joke. Leonard wondered what it was.

"Leonard, can you unhook the buckles on my clothes?"

He unfastened them and Tammy went to finish changing and shower in their little bathroom. When she did, Leonard pulled his green robes from his head and sat cross-legged on the bed closest to the window, tracing his knuckles across the fabric. What a day. What _days_ , more accurately. At last, after scratching the fake gray beard that dangled from his ears and always itched, he yanked the robes back over his marble-gray sweatpants and purple sweatshirt. Part of him felt like he ought to sleep after checking into a hotel, but in Newfoundland it was noon and he'd slept for most of the plane ride. No. His time would be put to better use if he went back outside and explored.

Across from him was a TV cabinet and a mirror. His dark face, sprinkled with freckles along his nose and cheeks. Brown hair cowlicked and curled in all directions, entrapping his fingers when he combed them through the nest he never brushed. Again, he listened for Tammy until he heard the water run. And run. And run.

Leonard buried his face as deeply in his palms as was physically possible, and then a little more. "I'm two for two. Two for two. TOM's inking pens and JEN's paint bucket, if she were that kind of person, she would really let me hear it tonight. What is _wrong_ with me? Why can I never get my magic to work when we really need it?"


	2. The Lyin', the Rich, and the Warzone

_Hovering is a ninth-tier spell requiring gravel to be crushed into powder, typically via the use of a blender, and swallowed alongside a vanilla plant and a handful of sesame seeds while goose feathers are placed over the eleven major exit points of the body (the feathers of another large migratory bird in your area may be substituted). See also, Weight-Halving Potion on Page 72. Booster checks in the form of midnight showers while holding a goose feather in each closed hand are required at minimum once a week forever after or you must wait another nine years before you can activate the set-up again. (P.S. It's probably safer to test this over something like a swimming pool rather than just jumping off the roof of the school like I did. -Leo)_

* * *

Leonard may have gotten some rest on the flight home from Morocco, but Tammy had stayed up reading and marking passages for most of it. He wasn't in the room when she came out of the shower, or in his bed when evening fell and she finally woke up. No surprise there- she'd probably seen him sleep like, three times in her life, and one of them had been on the plane, in bursts. Leonard was one of those people who found sleep to be a waste of time, and so had simply reprogrammed his body to take catnaps on occasion and otherwise never shut down. She spent another ten minutes snuggled among her white pillows and trying to recall that dream about blazing her way past the American army in order to return a baby unicorn to Haiti before the thought of biting into another piece of that Funfetti cake became too much for her to resist.

Kicking off her blankets, Tammy rolled out of bed to her right and up to her feet. Out of habit, she reached for the nightstand. Her glasses were gone. So was the alarm clock, her favorite Terry Potter book (a Gryffindor and his faithful Hufflepuff made a good pair), the entire lamp, the complimentary Bible, the three candy canes they'd found in the drawer, the TV remote, the hairbrush, the clothes hangers, her shoes, the little bathtub soaps, the towels, their toothbrushes, her phone charger, and the phone itself. She'd left her glasses back home in Manitoba so they didn't have to risk their little life in a race around the world. Leonard must have stuffed everything else that wasn't nailed down in his inventory for safekeeping in case he should need it one of these days. No problem, she told herself as she stood in front of the mirror, forcing her fingers through her thick blonde puff (though streaks of washed-out brown were sneaking in near the roots). She'd ask him about it later.

He'd left her hat. Tammy ran her thumbnail along the curve of each horn. And then, with a sigh, she set the helmet on her head. Time to put on a smile and play the game for another long night.

"He took my make-up. And he's not even putting it to use. Leonard, why do you these things to me?"

So, Tammy buckled her Viking outfit on again and set off to see what was what. Her first stop was the mess hall where, after greeting Leonard - who widened his eyes in hello and mumbled a greeting around his pizza - she was introduced to Keiani for the first time. Topher leaned against the counter nearby doing Topher things, maybe flirting with her or maybe just talking about the weather and the Race. _Or maybe reminiscing about times she used to babysit him in the past_ , Tammy amended as she came close enough to count the wrinkles around the woman's eyes.

"Who cooks when you're not here?" she asked, watching Keiani chop up a bright red tomato at envious speeds. Keiani just shrugged. Tammy marked the question on her mental list of things to keep her eyes out for.

"And it's another splendid evening here at the _beautiful_ Loserdom Palace. Joining us for dinner tonight will be Tamara Caudwell, modeling an exquisite taste in Viking wear, as per usual."

"Hey, Topher?"

"What's up, Tam?"

Tammy beamed at him, lifting herself up and down on her toes. Her hands stayed pressed flat to the countertop, and somehow having a surface to brace herself against helped her suppress the urge to slap the red off Topher's sweater and keep her voice low. Okay, low _er_. "Just between you and me, only _I_ am allowed to call Leonard 'Len'."

"Are you? Y'know, he always let me call him 'Len' back on the houseboat."

"It's not his rule. It's mine. Girlfriend bonus. You can call him that if you can convince him to dump me for you."

Topher removed his glasses and squinted across the mess hall like he was actually considering that offer. "I'm _pretty_ sure I could score better if I actually tried, so I'll let you keep him. Can I still call you 'Tam'?"

"Pet names fall under Boyfriend Privileges, so check first with him. If he says it's okay, then I don't mind." With that, Tammy took her sandwich and joined Leonard at the center table. He always had to be the center- he couldn't just sit over in the corner like a regular person. She asked him for her things back and re-braided her tangled hair. Leonard had polished off his pizza except two bites of the crust, and he clenched one in each fist as he chirped and chattered on about the shells and litter scraps he'd picked up down by the beach. In fact, he had the shells on him, and produced about nine from his sleeves and lined them on the table. They were still wet from being dunked in the salt water to rinse off most of the sand.

"You went down to the beach without me?"

Leonard cocked his head. "Weren't you sleeping or doing your knitting thing or reading one of those books you like? You never came back outside, so I assumed you wanted to rest after our lengthy journey."

"Next time, could you check up on me a few times to see if I actually am asleep?"

"Certainly. Might I have the honor of treating you to a game of miniaturized golf once you've finished with your meal to make up for my accidentally injuring your feelings?"

A new mini-golf game out in this cool evening weather actually sounded amazing, and Tammy found her annoyance melting away. She hadn't played mini-golf since right after she'd met Leonard. "I'd like that very much. Thanks, Len."

He reached across the table and picked up her hands. He held them until she finally looked up. Then he squeezed. "And that will make you happy, right? I want you to be happy, and you know you can tell me straight if you aren't."

She nodded.

"Good." He swept his plastic cup into his sleeve and shook his arms until it settled. "In that case, once you've completed your feasting and fully recharged your health points and mana, let us head onward in search of our next quest location."

They were halfway through the front door when Topher came sprinting after them. He made a motion like he wanted to swing an arm around each of their necks, but then realized Leonard was too tall and gave up.

"Leonard, Tammy- Do you guys mind if I tag along?" he asked (although 'begged' and 'pleaded' might have been a little more accurate). "It's really the perfect time of day for it, and I haven't had anyone to play with me for ages."

"Of… course," Leonard mumbled, deflating a little around the knees.

Smiling, Tammy stuck her hands to her hips. "You've probably played this course so many times, you'll whip us without breaking a sweat."

He removed his glasses to shoot her a smirk. "I'll play with my eyes closed."

" _That_ I would like to see. Well, come on then. If that's alright with you, Len?"

Leonard tightened his lips, but then broke into a grin. "I think that sounds like wonderful fun. We'll have to make you a character sheet, of course, and find you some sort of costume to help you really get into character."

Topher's forehead wrinkled up in something like thin panic. "You don't LARP mini-golf."

"You do the way we play it."

Tammy smiled inwardly as Topher stood there, stumped. Long periods of hesitation were evidently beneath him, because he evaluated the situation fast and said, "I'd love you to help me with that. I guess you're returning the favor after I helped you through your Ridonculous Race contract, huh?"

Leonard stared at him. "You said… yes? No one except Tammy has _ever_ said yes." Then came the hug- whatever it was about Topher that had been itching at him enough to curl his lower lip suddenly didn't matter anymore. Topher grunted as Leonard spun him in a circle and planted him back on the ground. "Go find something nifty to wear and we'll get you all set up."

Tammy distinctly heard Topher mutter, "The things I do to maintain order and control in my own home," as he trailed away down the hall, his toes dragging more than ever on the carpet.

Leonard clapped his hands about eight times in rapid succession, then shoved his arms into his gaping green sleeves. "Welcome to my playing field, Toph."

Tammy rubbed her elbow. "Leonard? Was I okay to tell him he could come along?"

"What? Oh." He shrugged. "I kind of would have liked to know you wanted to before you asked him, but it's okay. This will be fun."

"Sorry."

"Apology accepted, but I really shouldn't accept it because you shouldn't be sorry. Topher's the one who ought to shield himself mentally for swallowing his pride." The frown creased his lips again and glowed in his eyes. "Watch yourself around him, Tam. My contract says I'm not supposed to talk about Pahkitew Island spoilers until the season finishes airing in early November, but I request that you stay light on your toes whenever he comes around. Scarlett didn't slip me all the details of occurrences post my elimination and prior his, but she warned me he's sharp. Sharp like an orc's spike-coated club. And when Scarlett takes the time to say that when she could be out shooting the ducks or eating her Welcome to the Moore Household cake, you listen."

She'd forgotten Pahkitew Island. "Anything… I should know about?"

Leonard's look was solemn. "I'm only allowed to warn you his words are all poison. He tricks me into doing things I never wanted to do. He kind of just wants attention, I think, but I don't like to trust him with big things, only little ones."

"That's too bad. He seems so nice."

"Oh, he's very nice. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met. He's just… _slimy_. I've never seen him hurt anyone or ever do something mean. In fact, multiple times on the houseboat he went above and beyond to show us all kindness. I'm certain he wouldn't do that if he weren't really a good person at his core. However, I can't help but feel… prickly around him."

"How so?"

"I can't say exactly. It always feels as though he looks through me instead of at me. But don't let him steal you from me, okay? I can't lose you."

Oh. So that was all it was. Leonard's imagination was getting the better of him again. Tammy nudged him with her hip. "Len, nothing and no one will ever take me away from you. I'd rather be stripped of my Viking helmet."

They opened the little outhouse-like shed near the golf course the way Topher had shown them earlier and each picked a club and a ball. Tammy grabbed a pencil and book for scorekeeping. While they were examining the set-up of the first hole (which appeared to be Spain-themed judging from the little running bulls and Day of the Dead decorations), Topher slogged up the rise towards them. Pink and purple fairy wings flared out behind his back, the white straps clearly too small for him and digging into his armpits.

"This is all I could find in the Halloween cabinet. Season 9. Don't ask. Meet Topher the Pixie. So. Could we get in on this golfing business now?"

"You're a fairy," Leonard corrected.

"Fairies are nuts. Pixies are smart and way cooler."

"If you want to be a pixie, you have to wear a pointed hat and a purple bracelet. Two bracelets if you're Unseelie. But you don't want to be a pixie. Pixies don't get type bonuses because they're neutral parties. You'll be much happier if we're Leonard the wizard, Tammy the valkyrie, and Topher the fairy."

Topher pushed up his glasses. "Toph the Fairy. So, what happens next?"

"You're in the Fae class, so first we flip a coin to determine whether you're in the Seelie Court or the Unseelie Court." Leonard shook his right sleeve into his left palm, spilling out two granola bars, Tammy's reddest lipstick, a small bag of Fritos, a crumpled green sticky note, three red Expo markers, his wand, the buckle from a seatbelt, a white lifesaver, a packet of green and brown tissue paper, a plastic Easter egg, a hot pad, the metal ring from a pencil, a beach shovel, a squirt gun, the lid of a ketchup bottle, a paper fan, a shark figurine, a foil cupcake wrapper, two paintbrushes, a candle, and a pizza cutter before he finally came up with a loonie. "Excellent. So, the Seelie Court are Light Types and they get double power boosts in the sunlight, and the Unseelie Court get double boosts in the shadows for being Under Types."

Topher flipped the coin and landed on tails. Tammy frowned. Unseelies were always overpowered when night was coming on like this.

"Now" - Leonard produced the papers from his sleeve like magic - "we dub thee an official LARPer."

"And about how long is this going to take?"

"If we're quick? Maybe half an hour. Two hours if you really want to do it right."

 _It's a game_ , Tammy finally realized. Not the LARPing- she knew that part was a game, even if Leonard sometimes struggled to remember it. But as she slid her eyes from Topher's face to Leonard's and back again, the gears began to click in her head, turning conveyor belts and flicking on lightbulbs. This was an underlying test to see who would give in first. Who was the dominant boy here. Leonard's pride had been injured when he'd learned that he could not possibly be 'king' of the resort when Topher showed up and took them on tour. Topher's pride had been injured by Leonard's desire to act as 'king' in the first place and having the audacity to do something other than what Topher himself had suggested. Did they know what they were playing? Or did they forge on because they were locked into some male instinct that in their heads was undetectable or inexplicable?

Leonard sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk, and Topher knelt beside him and accepted the offered stack of papers. "So we're playing by Sapphire Crown League rules. In this game you start at Level 1 with twenty-four character points - nicknamed 'chips' - that you can divide into each of six areas: Brawn, Strategy, Technique, Stealth, Charisma, and Prestige. I would highly suggest selecting a focus rather than attempting to distribute them equally. Nobody likes a master of none."

"Right. I guess I'll pour all my points in brains."

Leonard chuckled. "I think you're more of a 'brawn' person, Toph."

Tammy found herself inwardly wincing at the pinched expression on Topher's face. It smoothed again, and he laughed, too. "Yeah, if we're honest then you're right," he said, and flipped his pencil around to the eraser side. "I think I'll boost myself in Stealth."

This was not good news for a Sun-Type valkyrie.

"The biggest rule of the game is that everything you do is very important and unchangeable. Next you're going to pick your occupation from the list on page six. Stuff like speed, agility, and willpower are all contingent upon the player themselves. However, regardless of your athletic or mental prowess, there are race bonuses, occupation bonuses, Type bonuses, patron bonuses, weapon bonuses, talisman bonuses, and shield bonuses. For instance, my race is human, my occupation is wizard, my Type is Lightning, my shield is this medallion I wear around my neck under my cloak, and my weapon is my stick." He pulled the tall stick with its blue crystal dangling from the half-moon end out from behind his back, causing Topher to flinch as he always seemed to and Tammy to smile as _she_ always seemed to. "Wizards are neat because they get Influence points and familiars that boost their magic."

"Familiars are cute little animal companions, right?" Topher brushed his hand across his wings. "I should've brought out Nutmeg. What's your familiar?"

"Ezekiel Foster," Leonard said as he put the stick out of sight behind his back again.

"… Sorry?"

"You know that Ezekiel kid from Total Drama who went a little…" Leonard circled a finger around his ear to suggest the phrase _Loopy-nut feral cray-cray_.

Topher blinked twice. His eyes slid left, then right. He took off his glasses and looked again. "He's not… here, is he? You can't fit him in your sleeves, right?"

"No, he's too big." Leonard got up and began to collect all the little items he'd dropped while in search of the loonie. "I'd only be able to make him disappear if nobody else was watching. I would gladly call him up right now and have him talk to you, but it'll take me a few minutes to locate my transcontinental communication device and the note where I wrote his number, and it's pretty late in his timezone, I think, and even though it usually takes him a long time to get to sleep and he may still be awake as we speak, I don't want to be the one to wake him up."

That made Topher nod several times and rub his nose. "Okay… Good to know. Good to know. So." He rustled a couple papers. "Can I be a blacksmith?"

 _Uh-oh_ , Tammy thought. As expected, Leonard went rigid all down his back, and especially around his shoulders. On one heel, he swiveled around. His hands stayed tucked out of sight in his sleeves. He smiled. "You want to be a fairy blacksmith, Topher?"

"Who else is going to craft cute armor for fairies?"

Leonard continued to smile. "Fairies as _you_ know them don't have blacksmiths. They are a subclass of the Order of the Fae, and they can't touch metal without being in excruciating pain."

"Really? I guess that means the Toph-Man has just landed himself a unique character. What if I can deal with being in pain?"

"But that's not how this _works_. Fairies don't touch metal. That's… that's just a thing. Literally _everyone_ knows that. Great TOM's paperweights- Why do you want to be a blacksmith so badly?

"Your magic doesn't work on metal, right?" Topher asked in pure innocence.

He knew. He _knew_ the rules. And clearly, Leonard had told him long ago on a houseboat off the coast of British Columbia, because he gawked down at the shorter boy with his head tipped to one side.

"Well… yes. Magic is an ancient force and metal is partially an innovative human construct. Any metal aside from the Big Three Magnetics - iron, nickel, and cobalt - cancels magic. That's why you can't affect planes or cars or people wearing metal zippers or those like Max who always had a dozen bits and pieces of things in his pockets."

"My buckles are nickel," Tammy finally decided to pipe up, but softly.

"Well… I mean, I'd really like to express my creativity and enjoy playing your game with a character of my own creation, Leonard. But if it's really going to be that much of an inconvenience to you, I can switch to something else. A blueblood, maybe. There are probably lots of people who play fairy bluebloods. I could be Prince Topher, the bravest, most daring, most adept, and most handsome knight in my entire kingdom."

Ouch. Easing off the Gary Stu-ness a little might be nice.

Leonard apparently had his thoughts fly in the exact same direction, because he set his lips in a taut line. "Okay, so you're a fairy blacksmith," he said, to which Topher pumped his fist. "Just don't complain too much when your health points knock up and down on the zero bar for a couple hours. All right. Marvelous. So, then we come to Traits and Conditions. Traits are typically positive in nature, Conditions are usually negative unless you can exploit a loophole. You have to take three of each, as determined by a random coin toss. You go down the column flipping the coin, and if you land on heads then you take what you get. First three. Tails you move on. All the better powers are at the bottom, and most people don't make it all the way down there… Yes, there you go. You're getting it. 'Accurate', 'Perceptive', and 'Fullblood' will set you up nicely. Then your Conditions…"

Tammy felt a soft buzz in the satchel that dangled from her hip. Leaving the boys, she slipped her hand past her ocarina and wandered along the mini-golf path. Once she'd moved behind a bush, she withdrew the shiny iPhone her dad had bought her just before she and Leonard left on this attempted trip around the world. She didn't like to touch it at the best of times for fear that it would break like an egg in her hands, and even now she found herself clutching it with the utmost care as she tapped the pads of her fingers across the screen.

Mom: _You 2 getting ready 4 bedding yet? Funned day?_

Tammy: _Long flight. Slept for most of it. Leonard found out Don's son was on Pahkitew Island with him. Nice guy. Not allowed to spoil anything._

Mom: _But your having funned times, right?_

 _Yep! :) Me and the boyfriend being cute and hanging at hotel playing mini-golf together right now. How are classes for you?_

 _Improving at my English fast! Much better by time your returning home! Then I use English 2 tell you I love you._

 _Awesome! Can't wait, Mom! I'll tell Leonard you said hi. Good night!_

After exiting the Messages app, Tammy found herself staring at her background wallpaper. She'd changed it just recently- an image of Leonard and herself grabbing sodas while their taxi took its sweet time guzzling gas. Overlayed in a square around the edges of the picture was an old poem Leonard claimed was about valkyries.

 _Three times nine girls,_ _but one girl rode ahead,_

 _white-skinned under her helmet;_

 _the horses were trembling, from their manes_

 _dew fell into the deep valleys,_

 _hail in the high woods;_

 _good fortune comes to men from there;_

 _all that I saw was hateful to me._

That about summed it up, didn't it?

"You pick one Skill, and the other is random," Tammy heard Leonard saying. Stuffing her phone away, she crossed her arms and hovered there behind the bush for a moment more, gazing over the course. Darkness kept creeping on. A few scattered lights here and there glowed like fireflies, but for the most part everything seemed so dark and deserted and peaceful.

After a couple more minutes, the boys finished up and called her back. It was time for the game to begin at last. Leonard had been LARPing a lot longer and had more speed-boosting equipment, so he went first and, after flipping his loonie and hitting tails, swept his ball down the wrong fork of the track.

"You have to be kidding me," Topher said.

"Sadly, no. This is how Leonard plays." Tammy always carried her 'lucky' nickel in her purse - er, satchel - and found it to be quite useful on occasions like these. After she unsurprisingly landed on heads, she knocked her ball towards the hole and followed it. Topher trotted up to join her a few seconds later, tugging at the straps of his wings.

"How do you like this course?"

"It has a rustic feel to it that I like. Nothing too flashy."

"Yeah, you're right. Want to hear a secret? It's all the destinations from the first season of the Race." While Leonard worked hard to flip a heads and bring his ball in their direction rather than away, Topher pointed to each of the eighteen holes and named the locations without any hesitation at all.

"How long ago did your dad start hosting?"

"He's been with it since the beginning. Almost my whole entire life. He used to take me around with him, after he and my mom separated."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize to me, Tammy."

Leonard joined them at last, and Tammy wrote their scores and they moved on where it was darker. Topher's Unseelie Court powers showed their worth when Leonard ruled he got extra hits free so long as his ball had rolled into the shadows where the lamps couldn't quite reach. He really got into a zig-zag groove after that.

After a few more holes, Tammy asked him, "So has your dad ever said when he's going to stop hosting? What happens after that?"

Shrug. "I'm kinda crossing my fingers that he hands the business over to me, but I also want to go to college and study psychology and public speaking first, and maybe a couple foreign languages."

"What about your brother?"

"I don't know. I haven't asked Evvie what he wants to go into lately. Maybe something at the hospital." At Leonard's signal, Topher flipped his quarter and reluctantly aimed his ball away from the hole. Fortunately for him, it happened to rebound back fairly close. "We've met all sorts of interesting people over the years and he keeps changing his mind. But I kinda think he'd prefer to find a white-collar desk job and settle down with a wife and family. I have my sights set a bit higher than that. Oh- your turn."

Tammy played a hypnotizing song that forced both boys to take the full six points on the following hole. When the three of them stood together beneath a young spruce to size up the train tracks that made jagged bumps in Japan, Topher said, "So Tammy, any idea what your future plans are?"

"She wants to be an anthropologist and study the Vikings in Greenland," Leonard answered. Tammy clipped her ball awkwardly, sending it spinning off the wrong way despite the heads side she'd landed with her dime.

"I'm sorry. What?"

He turned. "Well, that's your plan, isn't it?"

She averted her gaze, both from him and from Topher. "Actually, I want to study some anthropology in the classroom, but I don't really want to become an anthropolo _gist_ and… and do all that traveling and research field work stuff with it. I'd kind of… I'd kind of like to be a stay-at-home mom. That would be the ideal dream of mine."

"Oh," Leonard said after several seconds had flickered by. "I forgot about the part where we're going to have kids. Oh, geez. Tammy, what if when we have kids I forget about them again? What if I forget to wash them and feed them and buckle them into the stroller or the car?"

"You won't forget to feed the kids. You have all those foster siblings at your house and you take very good care of all of them."

Leonard clasped his hands. "Can we please try to have twins? I might forget about one kid, but I think I'll remember two."

She had to smile there. "Well, we'll see. And, that's another reason it would be good for me to be a stay-at-home mom. I'll take care of the kids and you'll take care of me."

With a raised eyebrow, Topher turned around. "So besides marriage and the adorable family, what's going on with your life in another six or seven years, Leonard?"

"I'll be a grand wizard, obviously. I've trained for this since I was six. I'll travel the lands aiding the poor and the sick and performing helpful services and teaching all the up and coming little people to thwart their bullies and follow their dreams, no matter how distant those dreams appear from where they stand and squint through their tiny eyes."

"I probably will end up having a career," Tammy told Topher as she took up her ball again. "I just haven't finalized all the details yet. Maybe I'll go into teaching. I think I'd be a good teacher."

"I think you would too." Topher smacked his red ball a bit too hard, so when it rolled down the slope it bounced away into the bushes near the place the green one had gone. "Do me a favor and grab that, Leonard?"

As he scrounged about for the two balls, Topher leaned his weight on his club and swivelled around to face Tammy. "So Tammy, how did the two of you first meet up anyway? It looked like you tried to say in your audition tape, but Leonard kept cutting you off when you opened your mouth. Not on purpose, I'm sure."

Tammy shrugged. "Nerdy kids like us get picked on. Sometimes we get shoved into lockers. I knew Leonard before we officially met- the whole school did."

"So did he wear the robes?" Topher prompted when she paused to nudge her ball down the hill.

"Every day after puberty. His foster mom knew what she was getting into when they took him in. She could sew." Tammy cracked a wider smile. "I remember when the sleeves were too big for his hands. He always tripped over his own feet."

"He didn't get dress-coded?"

"I'm not sure. I never asked."

Leonard finally plugged the hole, and they moved on to the next one. Topher said, "So, how did that first meeting go, Tammy?"

"Bullies. One day I bucked up and told Charlie Applebee that I wasn't going to let him copy my history test that morning. He-"

"I am way sorry for interrupting, but I have to ask." Topher knocked his ball without breaking eye contact. "I was just wondering, do you like history a lot? I'll bet you're good at it, if he wanted to copy you."

"It's my favorite class."

"All right. Sorry. Continue."

She flipped her coin. Heads. "You don't need to be sorry. I'm glad when you ask questions. Charlie didn't like that very much. He beelined me down the hall with his hands on my shoulders. We got there just as Katelyn Jarvis squished Leonard into her locker. He'd spilled something over her head in chemistry class and tried to turn her into a turtle, I think. During our imprisonment, we got to know each other. Best friends ever since."

He smiled. "And happily ever after. Good to know." As they moved down the hill to join a rather impatient Leonard, he broke into a yawn. "Whoo. You guys might still be on Morocco time, but it's getting pretty late here in Newfoundland."

"You're a fairy of the Unseelie Court," Leonard said. "You're nocturnal."

When Topher next smiled, he looked as glazed as a Krispy Kreme donut. After Leonard's coin came up with another tails and he stalked unhappily off, he said, "Hey, do me a favor real quick, Tammy? What does the mark that Leonard drew on my forehead mean?"

Tammy leaned a little closer so she could make out the criss-crossed symbol in the dark. Her first guess proved right. "That's the Golden Blessing. It's for new players, and it means you're invincible to deadly attacks by other LARPers."

"Uh-huh… He knows we're the only ones here, right?"

Tammy sighed. "He knows. Basically, when you have the Golden Blessing, you can neither 'kill' or be 'killed'. When you're more experienced, you can opt to start playing 'for keeps', which lets you unlock a bunch of bonus privileges, but then your character will be out permanently if you 'die'."

"Topher! Come on, it's your turn to putt. Your charisma stat's not _that_ high."

"'kay!" Topher skimmed his eyes up and down her sleeveless brown shirt, leather wrist cuffs, patched green skirt that fluttered about her knees, and fluffy boots that stretched up almost as high. "Has your character ever been killed, Tam?"

"Tammy." ("Sorry," he managed through another yawn, swinging the club. Hole in one.) "I'm on my… sixth, was it? I believe I'm on my sixth. Leonard's been playing ever since someone in the foster home introduced him to the game. That was maybe seven or eight years ago. No one else from the early days is still active. The Lightning Mage of Pavalor was his first roll, and he's never, ever been killed. He's too careful, too fast, and he hits too hard."

"Leonard? No."

"Yes, Leonard." Tammy squinted. Hole 10 was the Egypt hole, and full of sand. Two little pyramids threw shade over another hippo and her baby. There was even a little pond off to the left. When she flipped her coin, she aimed with care. "Are you surprised, Topher? This game is his entire life. He's not simply good. He's _excellent_. Like… he wiped out these older twins within an hour this one time. They were good, too."

"He's a bigger deal than the rest of us Pahkitews thought, then."

"You have to understand that we live at the epicenter of a nest of small towns back in southwest Manitoba. Pecan Creek has the only high school for towns and towns. Word travels around. But even in the summer we legitimately have other players hike or ride horses ten or fifteen miles over to fight him. Well, fight _us_ , but him. His robes have become the most valuable item in both Manitoba and Ontario. _Everyone_ wants his staff."

Topher rubbed his chin as they walked. "Huh."

Tammy nodded. "The rules of Sapphire Crown are that in battle you can wield anything you can carry on your person (for the loot drops) as long as you don't use it until you take a turn to equip it. Also, you can't equip more items than you have equip slots for. Ugh." All of a sudden, as she swung her club, she found herself rolling her eyes. "You would not _believe_ how many experience points you need to get those."

"Let me guess: Leonard is overloaded."

"Are you guys talking about me behind my back?"

"Talking about Sapphire Crown rules," Tammy called back, which wasn't untrue. He turned away, satisfied. At least there was one thing about having such a naturally low, soft voice: no pressure to lower it when she went on with, "Additionally, you either steal equip slots from those you kill, or you perform an Eternal Binding Seal and join forces as a team. Forever. _Arranged marriages_ , Topher. That's what this game does to people. I have seen couples bond and break. I have breathed love and war."

"So I'm guessing there was some super serious social status to be gained when Leonard took you under his wing, right?"

She shrugged her agreement. The Lightning Mage of Pavalor had been inadvertently popular with the most dedicated ladies in his people's crowd before Tammy had literally fallen into his lap. He'd picked her up, set her on her feet, acted as her umbrella and ice pack against the jeers of her schoolmates, introduced her to a world easier on the eyes and brain than the one she'd formerly been living, and never asked for anything in return for it. Not directly, anyway. It had taken her five months of nonstop playing to dare rub off her Golden Blessing, because bitter geeky girls had swarmed her. Not that Leonard had ever noticed.

Her pink golf ball _chuff_ ed in the thin artificial turf. "We're a team. I know healing magic songs on my ocarina that allow me to cut my health and replenish his."

Topher lifted half an eyebrow, fixing his glasses with his pinkie. "Ah, I see… Is that how your other characters died?"

"Only twice. Then Leonard tore my murderer apart and regained my loot, and gifted it back to me over the following few weeks."

"It pays to have friends in high places."

"Extremely. You've watched Len shake out his sleeves. With that inventory gift of his, he's unstoppable."

"Hmm…" Topher yawned and slid up his glasses to rub his eyes with the backs of his knuckles. Tammy took his shoulder.

"Topher, you're on Newfoundland time. You might need to sleep."

"Thanks, but I can stay awake. I'm in charge. Plus, Unsealed fairies are nocturnal, right?"

They didn't speak again for three more holes. Then, "How would one go about killing someone? In the game, of course- not in real life."

Tammy took a small clear canister from the pouch at her hip. Tied to the lid was a black ⅛ measuring cup. "Leonard will probably tell you this again when you lose your mark" - "I probably will" - "but these water bottles with the red food coloring in them are the most valuable possessions any LARPer in this game can have. They're Health Bubbles."

"I didn't get one of those."

"Golden Blessing. Wait 'til you're a Level 1 Tier 2." Tammy tucked the bottle away and watched Leonard wander away towards the windmill on the Netherlands hole. His club seemed to have disappeared. "Technically, as long as we're in costume, we're LARPing."

"Even if you're eating breakfast or taking a bathroom break?"

"Yes. You can't call time-outs unless the time of day is between midnight and six in the morning and you're sleeping. So if you see one of us get hurt - even if I just stubbed my toe - you're supposed to call me on it and make me flip a coin to determine how much of my health I have to measure out and drink. Maybe it was a cursed stubbing. A poisoned surface. You have to go until you flip tails. We can only refill once a day, right after waking up from sleep in the morning."

Topher had been yawning yet again, but he snapped to attention when he heard that. "And when you run out-"

"- it's over. Unless you're playing a druid, you're only allowed one bottle. Regardless of what your strengths might be otherwise. If you're serious about the game, you defend that Bubble above all else."

Topher nodded. Without seeming to pay it much attention, he swung his club, bounced his ball off the left side of the windmill, and scored a hole in two. "That is very useful information to know. Thanks, Tammy."

She tilted her head. "Topher, I think you need to head off to bed. You look a coin flip away from passing out." So saying, she flipped her coin. Tails.

"It's cool. If Chris and my dad can push themselves like this, I can too."

She crossed her arms. "I'm going to try and be the stay-at-home mom someday, remember? Mama Tam-Tam says it's time for you to get to sleep. Topher? Toph-"

Probably, the polite thing to do would have been to throw out her arms and grab him as he tipped. Instead, Tammy stood there with arms folded as Topher sprawled himself in the grass. The sequins along his fairy wings glinted in the moonlight.

Leonard gave a laugh with little mirth. "And thus we see how the weak cave to the desires of the mortal flesh."

"Is he really out?"

"I don't see why he'd want to fake it." Leonard allowed Topher's hand to drop back across his face. Yep. Standing, he set aside his club and winked. "It looks like it's just you and me, alone, all night. Neither of us is tired after our naps. We're on the same page here, aren't we, Tammy?"

Oh, were they ever! "All night pool party!" she shouted, and they smacked two low high-fives and a pair of fistbumps.

"I'll see if I can't use a tracking spell to round up some lactose-free desserts."

"I'll open the pool. If you grab ice cream, don't forget the sugar sprinkles, Len."

"As if! Do you remember how to check the acidity of the water?"

"In my sleep. And stay away from nuts."

He rolled his eyes. "I think I'm aware of my girlfriend's allergies, Tammy."

"You forgot last time."

"Scarlett killed the power and it was pitch dark!"

She giggled into the back of her wrist, then stopped. "But seriously, I really don't want to whip up a counter-potion at this time of night. You know I suck at those."

"If it comes down to it, I'll make it for you myself. But… before we get too crazy up in here, I think that perhaps we ought to bring Topher to a safer location." He studied the smaller boy unhappily. Sure, Leonard practically kept whole crates of supplies buried in his sleeves twenty hours a day, but it wasn't as though he had a lot of chips in the muscle department.

"Get that ice cream," Tammy said, brushing one braid away over her shoulder. "I'll handle this."

After easing off his wings, she scooped up Topher (he remained limp and exhausted in her arms) and thanked Leonard when he held the front door open for her and bowed. They parted ways. Fortunately, Topher's room key was around his neck, just under his sweater. He didn't move a muscle as she drew it out and unlocked the door. It swung open without a squeak, and Tammy saw the inside of his room for the first time.

What caught her most by surprise was that, well… It looked just like any of the other rooms in the hotel. Mahogany walls. Thin brown carpet that made loud scuffing noises with every subtle movement. His simple desk with one cupboard and one drawer, a laptop open to a patient swirl of screensaver colors. The bed was made. Everything was clean and squared away. Nutmeg sat grooming herself on the sill of a window overlooking the ATV garage. As she took her first step inside, Tammy wondered if this one little room was the only spot in the entire hotel that actually felt like home to him.

As she placed Topher on the bed, he pulled off his glasses and set them on the sidetable with a click. Tammy didn't even think anything of it until she'd drawn the quilt up to his forehead. Then she had to stop and stare at him. What a lazy little rat!

 _No_ , she corrected herself as Nutmeg leapt over to curl up on the pillow beside him, _let's not make judgement calls. He probably only just woke up when I shifted him to fold back the covers._

Partly to see if Topher would raise his head and snap at her for it, but also because she was curious to know if he was near-sighted or far-sighted like her, Tammy slid the glasses on her nose. Then she blinked. She took the glasses off, then put them on again. They didn't do anything.

She and Leonard were still out by the pool in the late morning, sitting with their feet in the water, when the new arrivals came stumbling up the path after Topher, who had at last gone to get them from the airport. "The retired tennis players," Tammy whispered. "I thought they wouldn't last long."

"Now, this is what I'm talking about!" The shorter, slightly darker of the pair clapped his hands, prompting the other to say, "You still have teeth to talk with?" to which the first replied, "You're just going deaf, Gerry". They both fell back in snorts of laughter.

"I can't wait to get out swinging on the tennis court here. I'll run you and your artificial knee into the ground, Pete."

"Longer way for you to fall than me."

Leonard spoke up for the first time. "They don't have a tennis court here at the Palace. They just have a racquetball court."

"… They did that on purpose." Then Pete - the shorter one was Pete - got a good look at them for the first time. Tammy assumed the squinting cleared up their faces for him, anyway. "Hold on. You're not…"

"Leonard and Tammy."

Gerry whistled. "Didn't recognize either of you in swimsuits instead of robes." He offered his hand to Tammy. "Not sure how I forgot that face."

"Back off, you old charmer. You're not eighteen anymore." Pete patted his duffel bag. "What say we get changed and hit the water? I'm roasted."

Topher smiled and rocked back on his heels. "You guys have fun. Yelp if I can help you with anything."

Gerry clapped a hand to his forehead. "I almost forgot. Hey, pointy-haired kid. Your brother said you go bananas for this stuff." Unzipping his duffel, he tossed Topher a jar of biscoff spread. Topher smiled knowingly like he'd heard a new joke and unscrewed the lid.

"Anybody want to try any of this? It's incredible on waffles."

"Really?" Tammy asked. "You'd share with us when it's your favorite?"

"I like it when my friends are happy."

"Friends," Leonard murmured.

They turned down Topher's offer, and he shrugged and sat down on a picnic bench beneath a sweeping peacock-patterned umbrella. After about five minutes, Gerry and Pete came jogging back out from around a couple of sheds in their swim suits, clapping their hands.

 _Oh dear,_ Tammy thought, averting her eyes too slowly.

Bellies bulged over waistbands and graying chest hairs coiled in all directions. The pair cannonballed simultaneously into the pool, soaking both Tammy and Leonard. When they bobbed up, they spat water in each other's faces.

A thrill ran down Tammy's back. She tapped Leonard's knee. "Do you think we could get in? Four of us means there's enough for games and chicken fights."

Pete propped his elbow on Gerry's head. "You kids think you can take us old geezers?"

"We've been playing Chicken Fight since before your parents were out of diapers."

"Oh, you know we can!" Leaping to her feet, Tammy pumped her fist in the air. "No magic required! I hope you're ready to remove your shopping tags, because you can consider yourselves owned! C'mon Len, give me a boost!"

Leonard tapped his forefingers together in the corner of her vision. "Uh, Tammy? Maybe… maybe _I_ should get on _your_ shoulders."

The looks that flashed over Pete and Gerry's faces said they blamed themselves for not thinking this through. They both raised their palms and inched away as Tammy pulled her lower lip over her upper one and nodded very slowly for a long time. Finally, she spun a crisp half-circle on her heels and clasped her hands together at her cheek. "Leonard, _sweetiebird_ …"

He shriveled. "Oh, dragonsnaps. JEN have Her infamous mercy on me."

"If you feel the need to brew a weight-halving potion, you're free to. I can accept that."

He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'I'll double the recipe' and scampered off before she had the chance to flick him on the ear for it.

"That's really the magic kid?" Gerry asked, hooking his thumb after him.

"His name's Leonard."

"I wouldn't have thought wizards wore striped swim trunks in four shades of purple."

"When he's not in his robes, he's not pretending to be magic, as with any game once the cards and pieces are put away." Tammy said, doing her utmost to keep the irritation out of her voice. She figured this was a subject best cleared up sooner rather than later. She didn't get to enjoy Leonard un-characterized very often, and she'd rather not hear any LARP-related comments if she didn't have to.

"Then what's with the weight-halving potion?" Topher asked from his seat.

She found her lips pursed without an answer on them.

Several more minutes passed, and finally Leonard raced back with a blue plastic cup clenched in his hands. Tammy took it and downed the contents (it tasted like orange Greek yogurt and maple syrup) before tossing it to Topher and jumping in the water. She surfaced, and Leonard slipped reluctantly after and then under her. Up, up…

"Maybe it didn't work," Leonard grunted, legs beginning to tremble.

Gerry and Pete both made an attempt to jump on one another's shoulders, and Gerry who was taller won in the end. Pete slogged over. Tammy lifted her hands. They connected with Gerry's thick wrinkled ones, and shoved.

"Oh no," Leonard yelled, "we're tipping! I can't hold on!"

"Leonard!"

"Ahhh!" He dropped her, and he probably didn't mean for her to open her eyes in the chlorine-laden water in time to catch his fist-pump. Tammy kicked to the surface and braced herself against the wall.

"Sorry, Tam," Leonard said, patting her shoulder. "I'm afraid I couldn't stand against the oppressors. They were just too much for even me."

She tried to glare the nicest daggers possible.

From the sidelines, Topher laughed. "Here, Tammy. I got you covered." So saying, he set aside his glasses, pulled off his sweater, and dove in. Tammy thought he'd pop up and wade over. What she did not expect was for Topher to arrow straight for her and surface beneath her legs. She gave a little yelp despite herself and wrapped her arms around his face.

Topher spat out a stream of water. "Let's get down to business. Camera-poise classes, don't fail me now."

Leonard's smile faded like a shooting star. "Wait a minute. I can totally do that."

"Do we even have a chance?" Pete teased, jumping onto Gerry's shoulders now. "Time to up the amp here. Let's serve."

"Lights, camera, action," Topher called, and charged.

"I could so do that," Leonard complained.

Tammy slammed her shoulder into Pete's, hitting hard but not hard enough. As he began to lean back, he brought up both feet and kicked at the top of Topher's head. Topher dodged backwards, overbalancing the both of them.

"Game. Set. Match." Pete and Gerry exchanged a thump of fists as they stood up again.

"Hey, Leonard!" Topher adjusted her weight on his shoulders. "You want your girlfriend back?"

"You bet I do," he grumbled, shoving back through the water. "C'mon, Tammy. Let's take these jokers down."

"No problem," Topher chirped. He waded up to Leonard, cupping her feet in his hands as Tammy scrambled over. She felt Leonard begin to crumple as her weight settled in. With a final wave and a smirky, "Have fun", Topher paddled away.

As Tammy watched him slither off, she brought her brows together. Her gaze slid down to Leonard's brown hair. Maybe he'd been right to warn her about Topher's way with spinning words. "He's _good_."

"I am an idiot," Leonard moaned to himself, but he attempted to square his shoulders as he trudged up to meet the tennis rivals.

After six rounds, the two of them finally managed to shove Gerry over. Tammy had Leonard cross-legged around her neck, and he seemed to be having the time of his day. Gerry and Pete were content to paddle around for a little longer, but Leonard and Tammy had been in the water for long enough.

Topher was kind enough to bring them sandwiches for lunch. Tammy sat at the picnic table, rotating her grape juice cup and watching Leonard examine some wide-leaved plants on the opposite side of the plaza.

Topher slid onto the bench across from her, combing wet hair back with his hand. "Have you seen my glasses?"

She held them out to him. "Topher, are these prescription?"

He shrugged his 'No' and slipped them on his nose. "They're my aesthetic."

"I would have guessed you thought they'd just get in the way of your good looks. But _why_ do you wear them if they're fake? That doesn't make any sense. It's actually kind of offensive to those of us who need corrective lenses."

"Well." He looked her over. "You said you started wearing your Viking outfit once you became friends with Leonard two years ago. You get your signature code colors when you're twelve. Ergo, that isn't the real you, my lady of the LARP. Doesn't that mean wearing it is fake and pointless?"

"That's different," she complained, smoothing her cheeks with the backs of her knuckles. "I just… I just want Leonard to know I have his back. And if I have to dress up and play his game, then that's what I do."

Topher cocked an eyebrow. "So you're portraying yourself to be viewed a certain way purely to gain the affection of your peers."

"I… No?" Tammy covered her ears. "You're confusing me. I don't do it for attention or- or because I'm shallow or anything. I don't care what the others think about me. I only care what Len thinks about me."

"Ahh," he said through his teeth, as in, 'Ah, so you're one of _those_ girlfriends'.

"I'm still Tammy," she said quietly. "It doesn't matter what I wear."

"I didn't say anything to the contrary." Topher adjusted his glasses. "Between either of us, Tammy, I'm the one at fault. I'm the selfish one. When you look at me wearing this cozy sweater and these glasses, what do you assume about me before you even talk to me?"

For a moment, Tammy could only squint at him. "You look nerdy. Like you're clever."

"Maybe I like having people think I'm clever."

"Did Scarlett teach you that back on Pahkitew?"

A flash of irritation zipped across Topher's face. He recovered too late. She saw it. "It was _my_ brilliant idea. I came up with it one time a few years ago when I was flipping through audition tapes with my dad, and he'd make judgement calls about people based on their looks before knowing how they actually tick. He made it a game- he'd pause as soon as their faces came up, we'd each pick three things we thought about each person, and then we'd roll the tape and whichever one of us scored more points won. _Scarlett_ actually needs hers. She tried to fix her eyes with science and only made them worse." Then he frowned. "Didn't you say that you need corrective lenses too? Where are your glasses?"

Tammy scratched her elbow and shook her head. "I don't really need them. I'm farsighted and I don't do a lot of reading, so I only need them when I want to sew."

He shrugged, took her empty plate, and got up from the picnic table. "You do what works for you, Tam. And yes, I did get Leonard's permission to call you that."


End file.
